What's A President To Do?

Lawrence Auster asks: What is it that everyone expects Obama to do?

In the midst of the entire political universe, Republican and Democrat, dumping on Obama for not doing enough about the Gulf oil spill, this comment at Lucianne.com expresses more or less my own reaction:

Reply 22 - Posted by: Sfacheem, 5/28/2010 7:45:43 AM

I for one, an Obama "hater" and rock-ribbed conservative, cannot figure out exactly what it is everyone wants the president of the United States to do about this. It seems to me that if the private sector company that drilled the well and assembled the rig, and the U.S. federal department that oversees oil rigs can't figure out what to do, how does one expect the president to know what to do? Are we that shallow in 2010 America that we "need" to see that he "cares" by watching him roam around the oil-slicked beaches in a pair of rubber boots with a tear streaming down his cheek?

The infantile mind set of blaming the president of the U.S. for everything gone wrong in the world is for liberals. We should be above the practice.

Who can even rationally speculate as to what is going through the minds of the Obama worshippers?

But, as for me, and I suspect most others who are opposed to the leftist plans to subsume the nation, what I expect Obama to do is to pay the price for his own past demagoguery against Bush in particular (who is not a conservative, in any event) and all conservatives in general. What I expect Obama to do is to live, or as the case may be, die, by the same standard he demanded of Bush. Sure, the standard is illogical and unfair -- but *he* demanded it. Sure, he never expected to himself actually be held to the standard he demanded of Bush. So? I think that the schadenfreude of watching Obama hoist by his own petard is wholly appropriate.

Yes -- in isolation -- this dumping on Obama for "not doing enough" about the oilspill is misplaced; worse, it is wrong, both logically and morally. But, this is *not* in isolation ... the world didn't begin anew when he pushed his silly "Reset" button.


Perhaps, someday, the political expectations and discussions in this country will be conducted at the level of mature adulthood. Perhaps, someday, when someone demands/asserts "caring" from government as the criterion by which to judge the propriety and/or effectiveness of action or proposed action, the rest of us will raise an eyebrow and then quietly ignore the children.

Perhaps, someday, the "liberals" will grow up.

And, just perhaps, someday, pigs will fly.


Update (2010/05/31): Here is 'Ace of Spades' commenting on the question of this post

People Are Crazy

On PowerLine: People Are Crazy
"... the Europeans are post-Christian in this sense, too: they have tried to "liberate" themselves from the curse of Adam by substituting borrowing for working, and from the curse of Eve by not having children. It was entirely foreseeable that neither of these efforts would end well."

(h/t Agent Intellect)

In defense of the impious Rand Paul

J.E.Dyer (HotAir): In defense of the impious Rand Paul

update:
Here are two more pieces concerning Rand Paul's "impiety." I hope to write up some comments, especially concerning the silly editorial from The Wall Street Journal. But, for now, I'll just say that much of what is presently destroying America traces directly back to certain unconstitutional and incoherent (and thus, immoral!) provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Lawrence Auster: The Wall Street Journal on Rand Paul

Seve Sailer: The Rand Paul Brouhaha and 21st Century Reality

A Day With 'My' Public

Yesterday, I went out into the public; and, Gentle Reader, it was not a pleasant experience!

For several months now, I've had a $15 gift card to one the big, nationally known chain bookstores; the nearest of which to me is a good hour drive away. Between that I just don't really care for driving, and that the trip would cost more than the card's value, I've just been carting the card around in my wallet for all these months.

Then I realized that carrying around the extra weight of the card was causing me to use more energy than otherwise (both my own personal energy and the car's when I do drive); plus, the thickness of the card in the wallet (in my hip pocket) was probably throwing off my spinal alignment. So, as yesterday was rainy (it has done little but rain for at least a week and a half), I decided to spend the card, despite that that meant a foray into the public.

The drive was actually the best part of the day.

The bookstore was a bit too warm for me ... and there were people in it: cud-, I mean, gum-chewing, foot-shuffling (these two seem to go together, and always make me think of cattle chewing their cuds as they shuffle back to the barn after a hard day of grazing), gum-snapping, flip-flop flopping; with little drama-queen girls, and little boys already so fat that the development of their bodies has been permanently altered .... arrgh! At least I wasn't subjected to someone snuffling for hours on end, rather than going to just blow his nose.

I got no pleasure from browsing through the books, either general interest or sci-fi/fantasy. None! What a waste of time in a bookstore.

But, the thing I just had to share with Gentle Reader occurred first. Walking into the store, I thought to myself, "I'd best check with a clerk that this card hasn't expired, lest I spend a couple of hours in here and then find the card is no good." So, I stopped first at the main counter.

There was an elderly gentleman in front of me, looking for the magazine 'The Economist,' which turned out to be not with all the other magazines but at my knee level just a few feet from where we were standing. He got himself a copy and handed it to the clerk.

The magazine's cover story was about the recent British election and the subsequent Tory-LibDem coalition government.

The clerk, a big, fluttery, lummox, remarked upon the magazine's cover story. "Imagine that! The far-left and the "far-right" coming together to form a single government like that," he sssaid, weaving his fingers together to illustrate the coming together of the far-left and the "far-right" into a unified government. "Maybe we can manage that, here, too.."

The elderly gentleman refrained from telling the lummox just what a lummox he is. As did I, let Gentle Reade be aware. But, I did think to myself, "I really ought to blog about this." Imagine this: there are actually people in this world who imagine that the Tories, much less Cameron's Tories, are "far right."


Then, to top off the day, the authors of the book I did buy are using "gender inclusive" language. Thankfully, this is a mild use, else I'd likely never read the book.

Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

Rethinking Robin Hood

For a long time now, I've had a slight dislike of the Robin Hood mythos. Oh, I had the same schoolhouse indoctrination about him as you did; and as I matured I couldn't help but admire that he was fighting Prince John (who still became King) and Norman injustice against the English ... but still, robbing "the rich" to give to "the poor"! Where have I heard that before?

Shoot! That's what I live every April 15, and I'm not even rich.

How often in our lives have we seen "liberals" call upon the memory of (and our childhood indoctrination about) Robin Hood to excuse the depredations of street-thugs and to justify their own planned depredations against the free citizens of this Republic?

The blogger 'Drew' have offers a different take on Robin Hood: Robin Hood politics

It Wasn't the Technology

Maggie Gallagher (on 2010/05/21): The Pill Is Overrated

I also loved Raquel Welch's brassy column, KLo, but I do think most folks overrate the power of the Pill as a technology shock. The separation of sex from reproduction was a great technology shock, but what was that technology?

If you think the answer is the Pill, ask yourself: Why is it that less than ten years after the introduction of the Pill and the creation of a constitutional right to contraception by the Supreme Court, that same Court created a right to an abortion?

If we had truly separated sex from reproduction, why would we need abortion?

It was the failure of the Pill to reliably separate sex and reproduction that led quickly to Roe v. Wade.

It wasn't technology which gave rise to the (imaginary) disconnect between the sex act and reproduction, it was the social attitudes about sex and reproduction, and that happened long before "The Pill" arrived on the scene.

With or without "The Pill," it was inevitable that a society composed of men who insist that they have the moral right to use women as masturbation machines will soon insist that they have the moral right to commit abortion, and to "free" women to "choose" abortion. For, after all, when the ethos is "I didn't sight up for this" -- never mind that "this" is the inevitable consequence of what one did "sign up for" -- then "this" must be eliminated.

Now, I have no truck for feminism, as Gentle Reader surely understands. But, likewise, I have nothing but scorn for most of the "men's rights advocates" (and certainly absolute scorn for the "Game" folk), who want at most for the loud-and-brassy feminists to just go away -- for they assuredly do not want to correct the real issue, which is their own impossible and absurd desire of consequence-free sexual activity.


update:
Maggie Gallagher (on 2010/05/25): Sex Makes Babies

The problem is not the Pill. The problem is the idea, which promoters of the pill introduced and promoted with great fanfare, that we have separated sex from reproduction.

We teach the young to think of pregnancy as a rare emergency, an unexpected side effect of engaging in sexual acts. This disconnect produces a great deal of lunacy in our culture, and suffering for children, too.

Yes, contraceptives will dramatically reduce the likelihood that any given sexual act will create a new life. If we had preserved the sexual mores of, say, 1968, we would have had a drop in the out-of-wedlock birth rate as a result. (To refresh your memory, there was quite a lot of unmarried sex going on, much of it between the affianced, and, most importantly, the average length of time of a premarital sexual career was considerably shorter than it is today.) Instead, we have a 41 percent unmarried birth rate, in part because we have sexual mores predicated on an untruth. We have not really successfully severed sex from reproduction.

What are the odds that that a young woman will get pregnant during her first year on the Pill?

The answer is: At typical rates of contraceptive failure, nine out of 100 of these young women will get pregnant. (Actually, that's the average for all Pill users; young users probably have higher failure rates.) Among condom users, 17 young women will get pregnant for every 100 who rely on this method (IUD's and implants are the most successful methods in "typical use"). That's just the risk in the first year. If you spend ten years being unmarried and sexually active, the odds you will get pregnant, or get someone pregnant, are quite substantial.

Newsflash: Sex makes babies.

You Won't Want to Believe This

Mail Online: Former French TV heart-throbs look unrecognisable on the red carpet after too much plastic surgery

The article says, "The twin brothers have had so much plastic surgery they are barely recognisable." A more complete sentence would have said, "... as human."

Tin-horn Tyrant Makes Best Case For 'Gun Control'

Hot Air : Mayor Daley offers his argument for gun control (with video)

Today must be Irony Day in the Western Hemisphere. First we have Cuba calling immigration enforcement “brutal,” and now we have gun-control politicians demonstrating why the founders passed the Second Amendment in the first place. When challenged by a reporter to explain how gun control makes the city safer when it only disarms the law-abiding, Mayor Richard Daley responded by offering to demonstrate by shooting him:

But even supporters of tough gun regulations-myself included-have to admit that it’s not clear how much they reduce violence. Despite having some of the most restrictive laws in the country, Chicago is a national leader in shootings and murders, and the mayor himself noted that “we’ve seen far too many instances in the last few weeks” of firearm violence, including the shooting that left a cop dead last night .

So I asked: since guns are readily available in Chicago even with a ban in place, do you really think it’s been effective?

I’m hardly the only guy who asks the mayor things he doesn’t want to answer, and I’ve been responsible for at least one of his huffing, puffing, ranting tangents, which generally get the press corps laughing, thus enabling him to move on to the next question without giving a real answer to the one at hand.

But even by those standards, this was a masterful and surreal performance.

“Oh!” Daley said. “It’s been very effective!”

He grabbed a rifle, held it up, and looked right at me. He was chuckling but there was no smile.

“If I put this up your-ha!-your butt-ha ha!-you’ll find out how effective this is!”

For a moment the room was very, very quiet. I took a good look at the weapon. It had a long bayonet. (Was it seized during the Civil War?)

“If I put a round up your-ha ha!”

The photographers snapped away. Suddenly everybody started cracking up.

Daley went on. “This gun saved many lives-it could save your life,” he said-meaning, I think, that getting that gun off the street might have saved many lives, including mine.

Sure - and it put the gun into the hands of petty tyrants, who then used it to joke about killing people who ask tough questions. If Daley wanted to demonstrate the wisdom of the Second Amendment, he couldn’t have designed a better demonstration.

The Second Amendment exists for two reasons. First, the founders knew that law enforcement couldn’t defend everyone against attack - unless they created a police state that would eliminate liberty forever. They encouraged people to arm themselves, an important move in frontier areas especially, where the writ of law didn’t run very strongly. The police are very good at investigating crimes after they occur, but not in providing personal defense, which isn’t their job.

Secondly, arming the populace makes it much more difficult for those in power to seize property and liberty without due process of law. As Daley aptly demonstrated, when only the government and the criminals have guns, they both can dictate at will without fear of opposition. When a reporter asks a tough question, just wield a gun at him and then later laugh it off as a joke.

The people of Chicago need new political leadership, a story about as breaking as the Chicago Fire. But this should demonstrate the end result of the forced disarming of the American public: an out-of-control arrogance of the government.


Update: John Kass at the Chicago Tribune has the video of the encounter:
[see original for video]

We should note that Daley never pointed the weapon at anyone, but that hardly negates the stupidity of this incident.

As the old saying has it: "Your brain on liberalism!"

This Is Going Just Too Far!

Arizona Demands the Citizenship Status of Students!

Jonah Goldberg on FF and V

National-Treasure-in-training, Jonah Goldberg, on 'FlashForward' and 'V': TV Update

So the word is out. Flash Forward has been canceled, V gets a last minute reprieve. I guess if I had to kill one of the two, that's how I'd go too. But the real shame is that both shows could be/could have been so, so, so much better if they were just better written and (particularly in the case of Flash Forward) better cast. There's literally no character in Flash Forward I wouldn't have been perfectly happy about being killed off. None of them had chemistry with each other or with the viewer. The only guy I was sorry to see go was that fat bearded guy from all the David Mamet movies. I could spend a lot of time dwelling on the idiocy of F.F.'s scripting, but since it's canceled, why bother? But, please, someone inform the producers that the Department of Homeland Security didn't exist in the early 1990s! That was by no means the show's biggest idiocy, but it vexed me every time they referred to DHS doing this or that in 1993 or whenever.

As for V, I just don't get why it has to be so bad not good. It, too, has huge casting problems. The Hugh Jackman knock-off terrorist character is particularly idiotic. In every episode, there are countless "that makes no sense" moments (as in last night's finale when the FBI chick asks for her gun and is allowed to wander around the ship alone). My biggest pet peeve? Every single time the alien queen hottie lies to the humans - every time! - be it during a press conference or when she's talking to the teen beat Dan Rather character from Party of Five, she then turns around and smirks her villain smirk. First of all, she's supposed to be without human emotions. Second of all, even the worst politicians know that smirking-like-Montgomery-Burns after you lie to the public is a horrible habit, particularly in this age of ubiquitous cameras. But what really, really, bothers me is how it betrays the contempt the producers have for the audience. After a whole season of telling the viewer that the Vs are evil, they still think we need to see the alien queen from Victoria's secret do her Snidely Whiplash smile lest we think she really does want to give us clean energy and cancer cures.

Argh.

Now, I don't think either show is quite so bad, over-all, as he paints them (*). But, on the specifics he mentions, and others of that sort, I cannot but agree.

No! Wait! On the "fat bearded guy" on 'FlashForward' being offed, I thought that was so deserved and well-done.

(*) I don't have a TV, much less cable, but I've watched them on the Hulu site. And, comparing the shows to what I remember watching on TV as I was growing up, shows which aired for years, I'd have to say that these shows are quality TV.